The Epiphone Les Paul Standard guitar has its roots based in Turkey, where a Greek gentleman known as Anastasios Stathopoulos made lutes and fiddles back in the 1870's.
Stathopoulos relocated to the United States of America in 1903 where he continued with his business until he died in 1915.
His son - Epaminondas (known as 'Epi') then took over the company and after the end of World War One the company then began to make the-then popular banjos.
The first guitars that the company made were not until 1928, the year before the Wall Street Crash.
Epi died in 1943, towards the end of World War Two at which point his two brothers took over control of the company.
They though were not so gifted with business as was Epi and the company was finally bought out by Gibson, their main rival, in 1957.
In the 1970's the Epiphone Les Paul standard guitar began to be manufactured in Japan, then in the 1980's the main manufacturing was based in Korea where the emphasis was on producing a cheaper version of the classic Gibson model.
Now however, the Epiphone guitar is built exclusively in China.
Although the Epiphone looks like the original Gibson model - both visually and ergonomically - some guitar players believe there to be a slightly different tone.
There is no actual proof behind this theory however.
These days Epiphone is a subsidiary of Gibson and in general the Epiphone guitar looks very much like the Gibson guitar even though the Epiphone is rather a lot cheaper than the Gibson, although Epiphone still keep their own line in the archtop range.
Incidentally, the name "Epiphone" is actually taken from 'Epi' (Epaminondas) and 'phone' which is Greek for sound.